PS: I found my hiking lens

After my depressing experience with Nikon's 24-120mm VR zoom lens I was looking for a versatile walk-around lens for the "FX" sensor since my super lightweight 28-80mm left me desiring just a little more wide angle, and a little more tele, too.

Nikon has such a lens for their APS-C sized "DX" sensor - it's the 16-85mm VR lens which Shuwen is using on her D90, and the news that a 24-120mm VR lens with a constant aperture of f/4 will be released at this year's Photokina are out now (if by accident as it seems.) I just wonder how much it weighs. :-P


Shrouded Pines (NIKON D700, 1/125s @ ISO 200; f/8, 60 mm (in 35mm)

In the meantime, I have found a nice walkaround lens. It's the only lens I carried on my most recent hikes. After my hike to the Wimbachgries I swore to myself that I'll never again carry so much lenses and photo stuff with me. The lens that I found is a used (take a deep breath) "Tamron SP AF Aspherical AD (IF) 24-135mm 1:3.5-5.6 Macro" - it was released for the 50th anniversary of Tamron, which was almost 10 years ago, and it's not so easy to find nowadays as full frame sensor sized camera's are getting more common.

It's a surprisingly compact lens for that zoom range, and unlike Nikon's unfortunate lens, the Tamron has usable corners even at 24mm. Just like many superzoom lenses, it has a rather close focus limit (that's why it has the "Macro" in it's name). The AF is not very fast (the lens needs a camera with AF motor) and it has chromatic aberrations (it always takes me three attempts to write that word!) that need fixing in post processing, but the only thing really missing is VR. :)

On the other hand... with the nice high ISO quality of the D700 and Auto-ISO in manual mode, I can always dial in a safe exposure time for my selected focal length (quite a challenge for a 24-135mm superzoom lens) and let the camera raise or lower the ISO to help me.